This is probably a good time to say that I don’t believe “robots will eat all the jobs.” The preceding tweetstream was to extrapolate the idea out all the way, not to make the case that it’s what’s going to happen.
First, robots and AI are not nearly as powerful and sophisticated as I think people are starting to fear. Really. With my VC/tech hat on I wish they were, but they’re not. There are enormous gaps between what we want them to do and what they can do. So there is still an enormous gap between what many people do in jobs today and what robots and AI can replace, and will be for decades.
Second, even when robots and AI are far more powerful, there will still be many things that people can do that robots and AI can’t. Creativity, innovation, exploration, art, science, entertainment, caring for others… we have no idea how to make machines do these.
Third, when automation is abundant and cheap, human experiences become rare and valuable. It flows from our nature as human beings. Examples: Price of recorded music goes to zero; live touring business explodes. Price of drip coffee drops; handmade gourmet coffee grows. You see this effect throughout luxury goods markets, e.g. handmade high-end clothes. This will extend out to far more consumers in future.
Fourth, just as most of us today have jobs that weren’t even invented 100 years ago, the same will be true 100 years from now. We have no idea what the fields/industries/businesses/jobs of the future will be; we just know we will create an enormous # of them. If robots/AI replace people for many of the things we do today, the new fields we create will build on a huge number of people then available. People 50, 100, 150, 200 years ago would marvel at the jobs that exist today; the same will be true 50-100-150-200 years from now. To argue huge numbers of people will be available but we will find nothing for them (us) to do is to dramatically short human creativity.
Source: Tweets – 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15
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@pmarca Says 